Guest post by Jaime @ Like a Bubbling Brook

Dr. Howard Hendricks once shared the story of a professor who stayed up late at night pouring over his books. A passerby asked him, “What keeps you studying? You never seem to stop.” His answer was, “I would rather my students drink from a bubbling brook than a stagnant pool.”

How about those you have relationships with? Are they drinking from a bubbling brook or a stagnant stream? The wellspring of wisdom is as a flowing brook (Proverbs 18:4).

This illustration always stayed with me and, as I was completing my master’s degree a few years ago, my heart grew heavy. I’d spent many years obtaining a formal education, reading books assigned by professors, studying subjects dictated by degree requirements, but I had neglected my study of His Word, His divinely-inspired love letter to me, the most important book of all.

And then, as my master’s program neared an end, it was if God whispered into my heart, “Let me be your professor.”

That single sentence shattered my thinking and broke my heart. I was hit with the realization that formal schooling had quietly become my idol; I had made my schooling more important than my spiritual growth. Then I remembered the Great Commandment (Luke 10:27), which instructs us to love God with all our heart, soul, mind, and strength. How could we love Him with our mind?

With God’s help, my husband and I made significant changes in our lives that year. We read through our Bible in entirety and spent special times in prayer and fasting. We desired to let God speak to us, teach us, lead us.

We studied the Word and sought to understand it for ourselves, both privately and in the context of our family and church. We prayed that we would be transformed by the renewing of our mind (Romans 12:2), and cultivate a greater intimate relationship with this God who created us.

We began to realize that, like every other aspect of our being, God created our minds to be used for His glory. Our failure to allow God to actively develop our minds will cause us to be stagnant streams, unable to sustain a vibrant spiritual life or offer refreshment to our husbands, children, and communities.

Letting God renew your mind is not about reciting facts, having the right answers, or obtaining a formal education. It’s about letting Him shape how you view the world.

When we pursue truth, when we pursue God’s way of relating with our families and the world around us, it bears fruit in our life. When we offer our minds to God, that’s when our behaviors finally start to change into what He desires of us. When we pursue Him, we are increasingly led to worship Him because we begin to understand He is infinitely greater than we could ever imagine.

Read your Bible; pray; learn; grow; always pursue truth. Speak His truth into the lives of your children and others around you. Grow in wisdom, stature, and in favor with God and others (Luke 2:52).

Your kind of intelligence, your background, your pattern of thinking is unique and valued by God. What are you doing with it?

Jaime G is blessed with an amazing husband and two sweet boys. She is a homeschooling mama who writes about faith, family, and food on her blog, likeabubblingbrook.com.

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Posted on Tuesday, July 27th, 2010 and journaled under Guest Posts, The Dance (on following God). Follow the coffee talks on this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a Coffee Talk or trackback from your own site. Keep up with Like a Warm Cup of Coffee by subscribing here.